Probotector/Contra: Hard Corps no deaths speedrun

Qlex

2006-07-06 10:33:23 pm

Tetris/Melee player

AH! Good to hear something about that! Good luck, I'm looking forward to the run!

zfunk007

2006-08-19 05:11:02 pm

To Speedrun... or not to Speedrun...

Update:

My bro is back from his summer trip and we started paracticing again this past week. Last night we made a few attempts at recording again but only made it about half way through the game before one of us died.

We've got this run, I can feel it in my bones. Soon hopefully.

getter77

2006-08-19 06:48:52 pm

100% runs=great to watch

Keep at it! This game nearly made me lose a Genesis back in the day....for various reasons... Roll Eyes

zfunk007

2006-08-19 07:55:40 pm

To Speedrun... or not to Speedrun...

Yeah man, this game is crazy hard. Especially on 2 player mode. I think thats the reason it wasn't that well received when it first came out. I remember renting the game when I was 14, playing the first level, not being able to beat it and then not playing it again until I found it in a discount bin about 4 years ago. Once I was old enough to appreciate the difficulty of the game. I loved it.

mikwuyma

2006-09-13 05:32:16 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

I just did a speed run of this game tonight on the chase Deadeye Joe, surrender path with Browny. The time comes out to somewhere around 17:00-17:15. I don't think I made more than 15 seconds worth of mistakes, even if I did make a couple more mistakes, I want to get the other paths done with ASAP.

By other paths I mean the other three main paths (based on the Joe/lab choice and the surrender/fight choice) and the secret path you can access in the third stage.

Yes, it only took me slightly over a week to do this run. I expect to be done with all of the runs in a week or two at most.

P.S. This game is actually very, very easy (and no, I don't care about your opinion zfunk007 and getter77), since most bosses use predetermined patterns. However, I will admit a 2 player run is a lot harder because bosses have increased defense, and you have to coordinate both players.

Frezy_man

2006-09-13 02:56:06 pm

bläää

nice Mike =)

I don´t own a copy myself and don´t know how good your time is but looking forward to see a run later.

How hard is the game compared to te alien wars for SNES ?

mikwuyma

2006-09-14 05:05:26 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Alien Wars on hard mode is harder. The bullets and enemies are faster, plus there is more randomness.

mikwuyma

2006-09-18 12:56:43 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Remember when I said I would do all of the runs soon? Soon happened. I even redid the Chase Joe/surrender run and I shaved off 15 seconds (ignore my previous comment about 15 seconds worth of mistakes).

If Radix gives me approval I should be able to mail the runs to Nate tomorrow.

Anyways, here are some rough times (all the runs were done with Browny). I didn't look closely at the times so don't get mad if I'm off by 10 or 15 seconds.

Chase Joe/surrender: 16:45
Joe/fight: 17:30
Lab/surrender: 19:20
Lab/fight: 22:15
Secret ending: less than 6 minutes

getter77

2006-09-18 01:37:44 am

100% runs=great to watch

Amazing....though we can't all be like Mike 8)

Your accomplishment surely honors the spirit of Combattler V.

Frezy_man

2006-09-18 03:16:19 pm

bläää

looking forward to this runs =)

MMAN

2006-09-18 05:31:02 pm

It saves me the trouble I guess, though as you said most things are predictable anyway. It's not like I could record anytime soon anyway.

Hopefully I'll get to see them soon, as long as it doesn't take as long to go up as my TR1 run Tongue

.

zfunk007

2006-09-21 05:12:07 am

To Speedrun... or not to Speedrun...

I could have done a single player run of this game a very long time ago, but I never bothered because my brother and I were focused on a 2 player one. A single player run with Brownie (depending on which route you take) would be pretty easy if you know the game well.

My bro and I still haven't been able to complete our run although we have gotten close. Just don't have the time lately.

Mikwuyma, as far as difficulty, I can't agree with you about Alien Wars being harder than this game. No way! Alien Wars is a cake walk! And predetermined patterns? On some of the bosses, yes but on quite a few bosses they usually have 4 or 5 different patterns that get switched up at random nearly every time you fight them so you have to memorize them all before you have a chance (like the weird ball guy with arms in the jungle and phase 3 in the virtual zone just to name a few). And some guys like the scientists final phaze on the deadeye/surrender route with his random laser things is very hard to estimate. This game has a very high degree of weird randomness. Alien Wars on the other hand seemed kind of bland and the same every single time. Weird how 2 people's opinions can be so different...

Anyway, maybe I just suck at video games but I think this game is damn hard. Try two players, and the difficulty is far, far worse.

I could have done a single player run of this game a very long time ago, but I never bothered because my brother and I were focused on a 2 player one. A single player run with Brownie (depending on which route you take) would be pretty easy if you know the game well.

My bro and I still haven't been able to complete our run although we have gotten close. Just don't have the time lately.

Mikwuyma, as far as difficulty, I can't agree with you about Alien Wars being harder than this game. No way! Alien Wars is a cake walk! And predetermined patterns? On some of the bosses, yes but on quite a few bosses they usually have 4 or 5 different patterns that get switched up at random nearly every time you fight them so you have to memorize them all before you have a chance (like the weird ball guy with arms in the jungle and phase 3 in the virtual zone just to name a few). And some guys like the scientists final phaze on the deadeye/surrender route with his random laser things is very hard to estimate. This game has a very high degree of weird randomness. Alien Wars on the other hand seemed kind of bland and the same every single time. Weird how 2 people's opinions can be so different...

Anyway, maybe I just suck at video games but I think this game is damn hard. Try two players, and the difficulty is far, far worse.

mikwuyma

2006-09-21 07:27:36 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Hard Corps in two-player mode could be harder than Aliens Wars since the amount of damage bosses can take doesn't increase in Alien Wars.

Have you played Alien Wars on hard? Bullets are much faster in Alien Wars hard mode than in Hard Corps. There are also a couple of random factors, such as where enemies spawn and the two robots in stage 3. That and there aren't as many bosses that die before they can attack Tongue

Like you said, some bosses have around 4 to 5 patterns, but they're still fixed patterns. That means you can predict what most of the bosses will do within a few seconds. Most of the bosses follow the same pattern everytime anyways (all of the bosses in the Chase Joe stage, the first and third forms of the Jungle boss, the first two minibosses, 3rd stage boss after fight the constellations, yes, there are more)

The jungle miniboss still isn't that hard, he doesn't have any incredibly fast attacks except for rolling around as a ball, but it's easy to predict the ball's pattern (always bounces at the same angle).

By phase 3 of the virtual zone, do you mean the Gemini twins? They sometimes fly towards you quickly, but it's not hard to jump out of the way. They usually die before they can drop even 5 balls.

Concerning bosses, I'll give you a list of what is hard:

Those extender things the doctor shoots out in the joe/surrender path (these things are random and hard to dodge at times). However, the doctor doesn't always use this attack.

The Colonel in the lab/fight path (jumps across the whole screen quickly and randomly, though his attack pattern is always the same).

Anyways, I probably shouldn't even bother arguing about this because Metal Slug 3 is way harder than any Contra game. Tongue

But I'm a big nerd so I feel obligated to argue about this out of principle.

Hard Corps in two-player mode could be harder than Aliens Wars since the amount of damage bosses can take doesn't increase in Alien Wars.

Have you played Alien Wars on hard?  Bullets are much faster in Alien Wars hard mode than in Hard Corps.  There are also a couple of random factors, such as where enemies spawn and the two robots in stage 3.  That and there aren't as many bosses that die before they can attack :P

Like you said, some bosses have around 4 to 5 patterns, but they're still fixed patterns.  That means you can predict what most of the bosses will do within a few seconds.  Most of the bosses follow the same pattern everytime anyways (all of the bosses in the Chase Joe stage, the first and third forms of the Jungle boss, the first two minibosses, 3rd stage boss after fight the constellations, yes, there are more)

The jungle miniboss still isn't that hard, he doesn't have any incredibly fast attacks except for rolling around as a ball, but it's easy to predict the ball's pattern (always bounces at the same angle).

By phase 3 of the virtual zone, do you mean the Gemini twins?  They sometimes fly towards you quickly, but it's not hard to jump out of the way.  They usually die before they can drop even 5 balls.

Concerning bosses, I'll give you a list of what is hard:

Those extender things the doctor shoots out in the joe/surrender path (these things are random and hard to dodge at times).  However, the doctor doesn't always use this attack.

The Colonel in the lab/fight path (jumps across the whole screen quickly and randomly, though his attack pattern is always the same).

Anyways, I probably shouldn't even bother arguing about this because Metal Slug 3 is way harder than any Contra game. :P  But I'm a big nerd so I feel obligated to argue about this out of principle.

Frezy_man

2006-09-21 09:14:52 am

bläää

Quote:

But I'm a big nerd so I feel obligated to argue about this out of principle.

hehe. Yeah. thats right.

In a two player run bouth the players have to do a great run too. If one dying the run dies =/

zfunk007

2006-09-21 05:52:23 pm

To Speedrun... or not to Speedrun...

You know mikwuyma, I just realized that I really can't argue this point. Mainly because I haven't played this game nearly as much on single player as 2 player mode. Whenever I played this game it was with my brother (unless I was really bored). So I guess I'm judging it solely from the 2 player standpoint, as well as Alien Wars which I also just about always played on 2 player mode.

The game is definetly harder on 2 player mode and the bosses usually take slightly longer to kill. I still want to get this run done though as a no deaths run. The only other 2 player run I can think of on this site is Rescue Rangers and if I remember they died quite a few times...

And mikwuyma, I can't wait to see your runs. It may inspire my brother and I to get back to work. We just get so demoralized when we get all the way to the end of the game and then one of the scientists random laser things hits us... ugh...

getter77

2006-10-24 05:09:21 pm

100% runs=great to watch

Wow is all I can say about Mikwuyama's ownage of every path of Contra hard Corps. I especially like the "Getter Robo Fight"...such poetic justice for Combattler V and Getter to meet as enemies instead of their allied ventures in the SRW games.

AquaTiger

2006-10-26 02:11:53 am

Never give up!

Extremely dedicated performance here, Mike. I'll be honest, in a few spots I actually thought you beat out the TASer's time for that area - I'm not joking here either (I actually measured the difference in the fight with the first stage's boss, for instance - I'm pretty sure the two runs are a third of a second off or less in that particular area).

Anyway, the main reason for my post. Since it was ruled that different characters get different runs in this game (and with good reason - the differences are VERY significant despite no character-specific stage differences), I'm going to make some guesses as to what weapon each of the other characters should use in certain areas, since I missed any initial weapon discussion. Here's my thoughts:
-Ray's general use weapon should probably be either the upgraded weapon A (Vulcan Laser) or weapon D (Homing Missile) - I'm going to say the upgraded weapon A because you're guaranteed to be able to direct that. The boss weapon should be weapon B (Crush Gun), and the weapon used for the start of stage 4 should be weapon C (Spread Gun). Probably the only character that can get some serious use out of any weapon in his arsenal.
-As far as Sheena, she should be using weapon D (Ax Laser - a spread gun and homing gun in one, but kinda wimpy) for general use AND for the initial section of stage 4. Her boss weapon.... hmm... I'm not sure whether to go with weapon B (Cluster Grenade - basically an arcing version of Ray's Crush Gun) or weapon C (Laser Gun), but for now I'll say weapon C. In my opinion, Sheena's upgraded weapon A (Genocide Vulcan) sucks.
-Fang should probably be using weapon B (Flame Fist) for general use - just make sure to jump while using it. The alternative here is his upgraded weapon A (Beast Shooter - check out the spread on this weapon). Definitely Flame Fist for bosses, but if the boss has delay before it, open up with a fully-charged weapon D (Charge Cannon) before resorting to Flame Fist. As for the initial section of stage 4, Fang should use the Beast Shooter. I personally think Fang's weapon C (Flamethrower) is rather pitiful.

Extremely dedicated performance here, Mike.  I'll be honest, in a few spots I actually thought you beat out the TASer's time for that area - I'm not joking here either (I actually measured the difference in the fight with the first stage's boss, for instance - I'm pretty sure the two runs are a third of a second off or less in that particular area).

Anyway, the main reason for my post.  Since it was ruled that different characters get different runs in this game (and with good reason - the differences are VERY significant despite no character-specific stage differences), I'm going to make some guesses as to what weapon each of the other characters should use in certain areas, since I missed any initial weapon discussion.  Here's my thoughts:
-Ray's general use weapon should probably be either the upgraded weapon A (Vulcan Laser) or weapon D (Homing Missile) - I'm going to say the upgraded weapon A because you're guaranteed to be able to direct that.  The boss weapon should be weapon B (Crush Gun), and the weapon used for the start of stage 4 should be weapon C (Spread Gun).  Probably the only character that can get some serious use out of any weapon in his arsenal.
-As far as Sheena, she should be using weapon D (Ax Laser - a spread gun and homing gun in one, but kinda wimpy) for general use AND for the initial section of stage 4.  Her boss weapon.... hmm... I'm not sure whether to go with weapon B (Cluster Grenade - basically an arcing version of Ray's Crush Gun) or weapon C (Laser Gun), but for now I'll say weapon C.  In my opinion, Sheena's upgraded weapon A (Genocide Vulcan) sucks.
-Fang should probably be using weapon B (Flame Fist) for general use - just make sure to jump while using it.  The alternative here is his upgraded weapon A (Beast Shooter - check out the spread on this weapon).  Definitely Flame Fist for bosses, but if the boss has delay before it, open up with a fully-charged weapon D (Charge Cannon) before resorting to Flame Fist.  As for the initial section of stage 4, Fang should use the Beast Shooter.  I personally think Fang's weapon C (Flamethrower) is rather pitiful.

mikwuyma

2006-10-26 05:34:37 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Thanks for the compliments so far...all two of you Tongue

Getter77: I don't know whether to feel complimented, confused, or both.

Aquatiger: Speaking of the TAS I should have thanked Gigafrost. His TAS did prove to be a useful reference. And yes, I think I did a couple of parts faster than the TAS.

General use? Do you mean the first stage? This game is all about the boss fights Tongue

You're pretty spot on about the weapons for Ray and Sheena. Weapon A might be better for Ray against some bosses.

However, Fang should start off every battle with a charged up weapon D; it does ridiculous amounts of damage. In fact, there are probably some battles that go faster only using charged up weapon D.

getter77

2006-10-26 01:59:41 pm

100% runs=great to watch

Feeling both is OK Grin

Everybody saw you beat up the Castlevania boss as Combattler V :cough: "Browny" :cough: on the secret ending path....but maybe I'm the only one that noticed the 3 Getter Robo Parody Triad boss that jumps ya from the water and fights mainly on a bridge while going from Liger(Drill), Dragon(looked more like a bird Grin

), then finally Poseidon(Tank).

Bah, great job on the run! Anime is the greatest source of plagiarism for games...EVER.

AquaTiger

Edit history:

AquaTiger: 2006-10-26 03:13:15 pm

2006-10-26 03:12:07 pm

Never give up!

Quote:

General use? Do you mean the first stage? This game is all about the boss fights Tongue

...........

However, Fang should start off every battle with a charged up weapon D; it does ridiculous amounts of damage. In fact, there are probably some battles that go faster only using charged up weapon D.

When I say 'general use', the first stage is probably part of it. I'm referring to areas where you encounter numerous enemies that are weak, but either have to be killed for speed's sake or cause problems if you don't kill them. Things like the bikers in the third stage (first case, albeit not an exceptionally good one) or the headless chicken aliens on the "Chase Joe, Fight" path (second case).

As far as Fang, the reason I said he should only shoot bosses that have a delay (specifically, any delay where they're invulnerable - the stage 4 bosses fit under this description, for example) with the charged weapon D is because I was under the impression that minimizing delays will unquestionably make things go faster. Now that I think of it, what bosses DON'T have much delay at all?

[quote]General use?  Do you mean the first stage?  This game is all about the boss fights :P

...........

However, Fang should start off every battle with a charged up weapon D; it does ridiculous amounts of damage.  In fact, there are probably some battles that go faster only using charged up weapon D.[/quote]

When I say 'general use', the first stage is probably part of it.  I'm referring to areas where you encounter numerous enemies that are weak, but either have to be killed for speed's sake or cause problems if you don't kill them.  Things like the bikers in the third stage (first case, albeit not an exceptionally good one) or the headless chicken aliens on the "Chase Joe, Fight" path (second case).

As far as Fang, the reason I said he should only shoot bosses that have a delay (specifically, any delay where they're invulnerable - the stage 4 bosses fit under this description, for example) with the charged weapon D is because I was under the impression that minimizing delays will unquestionably make things go faster.  Now that I think of it, what bosses DON'T have much delay at all?

mikwuyma

Edit history:

mikwuyma: 2006-10-27 04:01:38 pm

2006-10-26 04:07:33 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

I was just joking about general use, I know what you meant but the game really is mostly boss fights.

Anyways, I think you're really underestimating the power of weapon D. I'm pretty sure the time spent charging is compensated by weapon D's power, though I would have to test. Yes, I do know that weapon B is also very powerful. Regardless, you should start off every boss battle with a charged weapon D (it's not like you're going to lose time charging weapon D before the fight starts). Also, I don't think flamethrower is completely useless, it does more damage than weapon A IIRC.

Edit: Forgot to mention I'm talking about Fang in the last paragragh.

zfunk007

2006-11-02 03:50:01 am

To Speedrun... or not to Speedrun...

I'm downloading the runs now. Starting with the path my brother and I never finished. I'll be curious to see how you do it and if my brother and I did anything differently. From the sounds of it, we did. I'll let you know what I think once I see them. Looking forward to it!

MMAN

Edit history:

MMAN: 2006-11-04 01:16:06 am

2006-11-04 01:13:17 am

I haven't played the game for ages so I forgot a lot of my "notes", but I apparently overlooked the optimal way to do damage with the yo-yo (I just tried out using it in short "bursts" whenever possible and it definitely seems to slaughter stuff way quicker). Owning half the bosses before they even attack you is pretty fun Smiley

.

I haven't seen any of the runs other than the first yet (shortest route), but when I tried just now I noticed that if you keep it on the boss throughout the fight (using its boomerang properties) weapon B seems to kill the final stage of the Jungle boss a little quicker than the yo-yo did in that run (probably a second at most, on the other hand, I didn't use the boomerang properties to their full extent as I was just testing).

mikwuyma

2006-11-04 02:57:26 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

How does using the boomerang properties of weapon B kill bosses faster? Anyways, I could imagine weapon B killing the final form of the jungle boss slightly faster because it's difficult to hit consistently with weapon C. Though maybe I just used bad positioning with weapon C.

MMAN

Edit history:

MMAN: 2006-11-04 01:45:33 pm

2006-11-04 01:34:45 pm

The cool thing about weapon B is that on bosses where damage affects how dangerous they are it seems to move them very little while also doing good damage.

For a speedrun though the Jungle boss is probably the only thing where this matters (if C can't be done much faster in a non-TAS), if you were able to keep B on it constantly there's a small chance you might even be able to kill it before it even finishes its first laser attack.